Data storage systems have evolved and continue to evolve to keep up with the demands of the organizations that use them. Many organizations, for example, utilize data storage systems for, among other reasons, the purpose of generating storage volumes to support virtual computing instances and providing high performance input/output (I/O) intensive workloads. These data storage systems often utilize common hardware to store data on behalf of multiple users. Despite their many advantages, modern data storage systems present many challenges, especially in connection with maintaining efficient yet secure access to data.
For example, in some instances, data storage space allocated to one user can be reallocated to another user. To provide for secure transition from one user to the next, the reallocation process may include removing (erasing) data before the transition, such as by overwriting data with zeros, random information, or otherwise. Despite best efforts to avoid it, the process of removing one user's data to allocate storage space for another can result in performance degradation while the data is removed, such as by causing additional latency. Additionally, failing to remove data before reallocating storage space may have the unintended result of making one user's data available to another. Adequately addressing these risks can present additional costs to the organizations that rely on the data storage systems and to the computing resource service provider that provides a data storage system service.